Interview: Hello Psychaleppo on His Music, Arabic Culture…and a New Album! (Part 1)

Independent Arabic strain has been creation waves. It’s tough to pinpoint, exactly, when a initial ripples began; subterraneous Arabic strain has always been interesting, yet 0 unequivocally done a splash. But things began to change, during slightest for me, in 2010.

Part of that is a scrutiny of new ideas and new forms yet detriment of identity. For each rope out there that radically plays Metallica in Arabic, there are those who select to draft new waters. They mostly succeed, yet they’re always interesting.

Hello Psychaleppo is one of these.

I initial beheld Hello Psychaleppo in late 2014; there was this unusual nonetheless stylised print on a wall conflicting of a counter we was sitting in, earnest a uncover during Canvas, in Amman, in dual weeks’ time. we went to a uncover with a friend, awaiting to see a band; we instead got a man with headphones.

Above: To be honest, it was a formidable print not to notice.

But what a guy.

The strain he played was unconditionally Arabic, and nonetheless unconditionally new. It wasn’t only interesting; it was fun. My crony and we danced notwithstanding ourselves, giving ourselves to a strain and a strain unconditional us adult in turn. We rode that call all a proceed to a finish of a night and thereafter on a dizzy, silly float home. Fun? Try fantastic.

And while we haven’t been to another Hello Pscyhaleppo uncover since—not for miss of trying—I’ve been listening to a strain while anticipating to get into another show.

Hello Psychaleppo is unequivocally a project. The man with headphones behind a whole thing is named Samer “Zimo” Saem Eldahr, an art propagandize connoisseur who grew-up in Aleppo, altered to Beirut, and now lives in a US. He’s an skilful musician, carrying achieved with stone bands (he considers Iron Maiden an influence) yet shunning a tarab music he grew-up with. Hello Psychaleppo is his proceed of doing something different—something we now call electro-tarab but which, a few years ago, was mostly nameless. He’s expelled a handful of albums underneath a name.

When a possibility to speak Samer came-up, we jumped during it. So did Yazeed, a crony and co-worker who had detected Hello Psychaleppo progressing in a year. It was a assembly of worlds: while my low-pitched tastes are erratic (I spent all week listening to Ibn el Leil and Surfer Rosa), Yazeed is a self-professed hip-hop conduct and artist who works problematic lyrics into conversation.

Admittedly, we were a small nervous. But we needn’t have been. Behind all a peep and a gigantic talent that creates Hello Psychaleppo was one of a many humble, thoughtful, and clear people possibly of us has had a pleasure to interview. We talked about Hello Psychaleppo, Samer’s past…and Hello Psychaleppo’s sparkling arriving new album.

This speak was mostly conducted in Arabic, with occasionally forays into English.

**

Karim: Why do they call we Zimo?

Zimo is only a nickname we had given we was a kid. we had a hermit who upheld divided from cancer when we was immature and he called me “Zimo.” My name’s Samer. (laughs) I still don’t know how he done a burst to Zimo.

Yazeed: It’s one of those names that came with childhood.

Yeah. There are a few people who only say…people who don’t know my name is Samer. They only call me “Zimo.”

Karim: Even in Aleppo?

Yeah, given we was a kid. Since we was 10, 11. (laughs) So there’s Samer, there’s Zimo, there’s Hello Psychaleppo. I’ve always had these mixed personalities.

Karim: And now too in…(blanking) you’re in Missouri, right?

I’m in Minnesota.

Karim: I’m sorry, Minnesota.

[Zimo] is easier here for them. “Samer” is tough for [Americans] to pronounce…Zimo is easier to say.

Yazeed: we was going to ask: a plan is named Hello Psychaleppo. Do people get confused and consternation if you’re in a rope or…

I feel this still happens. They’re like, “How many people are you?” and it’s, “Just me,” given [Hello Psychaleppo] is not named after me and it’s not a [specific] project—this has to do with selling and branding. There are many projects with only one chairman behind them that only used a same proceed to market. Aphex Twin—that’s not [anything like] his genuine name. But he combined Aphex Twin, a logos, whathaveyou—his “world.”

Hello Psychaleppo came about like that; a difference come together in a good way. Psychaleppo has a stroke to it. Psychaleppo and hello: a series of ls and Os [the alliteration].

So it done sense, marketing-wise, even then: we can rave on this persona, we can rave on this name.

I don’t know if [the name] works in a long-run, yet for now it’s only doing a job.

Above: Hello Psychaleppo performing. (Facebook / Hello Psychaleppo)

Karim: we wanted to ask we about a name, actually. “Psychaleppo” is a portmanteau of “Aleppo” with “psychedelica,” yes?

Y-yyyes. Well, arrange of. Psychedelic as a genre, yes.

The genre is unequivocally progressive, and “psychedelic” helps we suppose a story, and—

Karim: Ah, see, that was my question. To me, “psychedelic” means—you know, psychedelic. The 1960s. Those LPs with a art. You know what we mean. Psychedelic. [In retrospect, it’s a consternation he did.]

Exactly. This is some-more like a stone stage behind in a day.

Karim: Which is what we know.

But we take a name from a low-pitched aspect. Psychedelic strain is unequivocally progressive. It’s always holding we to new places. [I chose a name for that] some-more than we did for psychedelic as a strain genre. [I like the] strain as a concept…as an idea.

Karim: Something we was extraordinary about.

For sure.

Karim: You complicated excellent humanities in Aleppo. When we contend we like a strain as an idea, that sounds like a unequivocally [theory-based] thing to say, a lingo of art students…Does your thought of unusual strain conceptually come from your time as an art tyro in Beirut or is it something desirous by [art theory] during university, or—?

The name Psychaleppo comes from…I was unequivocally meddlesome in a forms and arrangements of unusual music. How a strain is [structured] with a solos and how it takes we to certain places, how a intros are so opposite to a outros. It’s unequivocally progressive; a strain is changing all a time [in a same song]. we found a thought for Hello Psychaleppo there.

If we listen to my music, there’s a lot of investigation with forms. How a strain starts and where it arrives and how it ends. Sometimes, there are collection that don’t repeat in a track. It’s not a blurb proceed of executing. [In songs] there’s always a carol or some other component that we don’t indispensably have in my music. Not given we don’t wish them, yet given of how we write a strain and where we use a samples and where things goes [is formed on] this concept. Like, if we listen to a Led Zeppelin, their songs start in one place and finish in another, with a five-minute solo. There’s a aloft importance on form, there’s some-more strain than there is [focus on] a customary structure to work with.

The name of a plan happened in Aleppo itself, in 2010, we think…I had a few tracks. we played strain in a garland of bands. we played rock. Guitar. Keyboard. we sang. But during this, we worked on solo projects during home, that was Hello Psychaleppo.

Above: Hello Psychaleppo’s second album, that is when things gelled.

Over time, we amassed a garland of tracks, and we put those adult on Soundcloud. we was during a University of Aleppo’s College of Fine Arts…It started as a unequivocally eccentric project.

Then we went to Beirut, where a work found itself.

Karim: You forsaken an manuscript before going to Beirut.

The initial album, yeah. we was in Aleppo in 2012. A few people in Beirut listened it. The manuscript isn’t online anymore. It was a trial, a proceed of contrast a waters.

I took it offline when we had a improved thought of what we was doing. we improved supposed a collection we had, improved supposed a project’s identity—all a large questions. we took it seriously.

Karim: [That’s] when we detected you. In 2014, we saw we perform during Canvas in Amman.

Ohhh, nice! That was a good show.

Karim: That was a good show! we was ostensible to see we in London that year, during a Shubbak Festival, yet that didn’t pan-out.

Oh, nice. Canvas was good! So was Shubbak.

Karim: You didn’t go to Shubbak this year, no?

No, we didn’t. we consider Tania Saleh and Rayess Bek did, though.

Yazeed: Regarding Rayess Bek and hip-hop artists, we know we worked with a hip-hop artist named Ray al Jundi.

Jundi! Yeah, Jundi Majhul.

Yazeed: What’s your attribute like with hip-hop artists and a hip-hop community? Do we feel your genre has a tie with hip-hop music?

I’m a hip-hop head, ever given we was 10. My comparison brother, rest in peace, listened to hip-hop a lot…After we left to Beirut, we detected this stage where people were doing only extraordinary work. During that period, Jordan sprouted a illusory hip-hop stage of a own. Egypt, too. Each nation seemed to have a possess style. The upsurge is different, a genre is different. Some was political, some was a bit some-more pointed about it. Suddenly we had Arabic rap, that was—ouf.

The biggest stage in choice strain right now is hip-hop. A lot of people are doing unequivocally good work. There’s quality. And given we adore this things and have given we was kid, I’ve met some unequivocally good people [just being a fan] who are doing unequivocally good work.

Yazeed: Who are some hip-hop artists that you’ve worked with?

I worked on a lane with El-Far3i. we worked with Nasser Deen al-Touffar. Jundi Majhul. Darwish, a man from Homs. We worked on a garland of events together live. There’re recordings we worked on with Mehrak, with Raed Ghnaim, Al Asli, from Deir ez-Zor. I’m also operative right now with Omar Offendum. There’s also Paleface, from Finland, aged rapper who we worked with on a project. It’s a rope with hip-hop with a large rope orchestra. It was unequivocally cool.

Nowadays we get to work infrequently with others. But until now we didn’t dedicate to producing a whole plan [with] an artist. I’m still too bustling with my possess work to take that up, yet we suppose Nasser Deen al-Touffar…I could be co-producing with someone else on his new album.

Yazeed: So we can contend a work with Jundi and El Fer3i—I [heard] that on your Soundcloud—we’re gonna be saying some-more of that.

Above: Fer3i and Hello Psychaleppo. (Facebook / Hello Psychaleppo)

Totally. In a hip-hop scene. Well, we can’t suppose restricting myself too much, yet we can see myself doing something more…well, with fewer people [and some-more focused]. But these people are on tip of a list. Fer3i. Jundi. Nasser. Al Asli is doing unequivocally good stuff.

Karim: In terms of practicalities, a lot of your inspirations seem to be Arabic.

Yeah.

Karim: we know we like AC/DC and Iron Maiden, yet now that you’re vital in Minnesota, how’s your entrance to Arab culture? And how’s your attribute to Arab enlightenment altered now that you’re vital in a non-Arabic country?

Hmm.

Karim: This is your initial time in a non-Arab country, we think?

(thoughtfully) Yeah, it is.

I consider a things that unequivocally changes is some-more on a day-to-day basis. Like unexpected we open a radio and there isn’t a singular Arabic strain on there. Or like TV. It’s these small things that we comprehend have left your life. Easy entrance to enlightenment is gone.

I do spend a lot of time inside my room, only working. we don’t feel outward a enlightenment completely. Like, in terms of amicable activities, I’ll run into a Palestinian here, someone else here…But with no family, or even [the border of a amicable activities], it’s unequivocally gone.

So yeah, I’m a small bit some-more private [from Arab culture] than we was. But not in a proceed that’s influenced me in a…(considers)

Karim: Obviously disastrous way.

Yeah. It helps that I’ve lived many of my life in a Arab world. It’s not like we left when we was 10. we came here to when we was wakeful and mature and with a background. I’m only perplexing to adjust to a newer place. we don’t imagine, culturally, this would impact me as much.

Above: A fanciful self-portrait.

Karim: But don’t we consider that affects we commercially? Someone sampling Umm Kulthum or tarab in Syria is unequivocally opposite to doing a same in Minnesota.

Exactly. How people simulate on my music, is apparently unequivocally opposite here.

The assembly here—you’re starting from zero. America is a place totally removed from a world. Europe, given of migration, only a series of people who went into Europe, has turn during slightest some-more open to a music. The stream Arab marketplace is a Arab universe and Europe, mostly. But there’s an sea to America. So there’s a disconnect.

But a good thing is that in a strain we make, there’s an electronic element. It’s an general denunciation right now, electronic music. [Audiences] bond with that.

There are a lot of rhythms we use—like reggaeton, for example. (imitates a drum) Boom, taktak—boom, taktak. That’s a dabke rhythm, yet also reggaeton. There are a lot of places where hip-hop has rhythms spliced in. Plus, we like hybrids. Say, something Arabic, yet with drum and drum during a finish of a track, as partial of a build-up. [Audiences] bond with a melodic, rhythmic, electronic partial of that: anything above that is more, “Ouf, this is new. What tune is this? What are these vocals or phrasing entrance out?” At that indicate it becomes a matter of taste.

But generally, people seem happy. And now I’m means to kind of transport a small inside Minnesota, during slightest locally, that is great. we told myself it’d take dual or 3 years to start somewhere, and it’s…(trails off)

Karim: Baby steps.

Baby steps. But during least, we know, we can start somewhere. America is such a—it’s unequivocally challenging. There are a lot of people operative in electronic music. You feel like we unequivocally need to be on top, even in technical aspects.

The new album…I haven’t expelled anything in dual years like common given I’ve been focused on quality.

Yazeed: We listened about a uncover in Michigan, a arriving show. The Arab American National Museum.

Yeah!

Yazeed: Are we vehement about that? Playing for an Arabic audience?

The sparkling thing is that, in America, we don’t get a kind of feedback, [the hype of] “Yeah, we’re coming! Woo!” In Michigan, in Dearborn, there are many Arabs and we can see a feedback like, “Ah, approbation yes! He’s coming!” (laughs) I only kind of go, “Ouf, where am I?”

(Everybody laughs)

That’s unequivocally nice. we suppose a [Museum] is going to be good to play at. There’s an audience…it can be a place where we can unequivocally have a little fanbase, during least.

Yazeed: You’ve unequivocally been around Middle Eastern audiences, and they contingency have unequivocally favourite your music. And maybe one of a reasons is, we know, a Arabic background. For Arab-Americans, do we consider this competence open a doorway for them, given they’re not too used to complicated Arabic music?

I would contend they would be an easier assembly to prove some-more than Middle Easterners in a Middle East.

[People in a Middle East] have listened to a lot of this things [and a roots], so their visualisation can be harsher. Like, “Oh, you’re doing this to Arabic strain here, why?” and we enter that debate. Whereas here we consider they’re already unprotected to a Western culture, electronic partial of a music. They see a work as something returning them to their roots. It’s many easier for them to accept a strain and be a partial of it than people in a Middle East.

[At many of my Middle Eastern shows], they could even fasten on to details. Plus they got a language. My samples are all Arabic. Here, people infrequently miss-out on something. There, no. we play in Arabic, and we select a representation I’ll play, and we know how people will accept it. Here, it doesn’t matter so many what lane I’ll be playing.

Karim: Do we consider there’s anything else that’s opposite between personification for Arabs and Americans? we was reading an essay currently about how [the West] perceives anything “weird” as World Music. And now that you’re World Music, do we feel like, given of a proceed some American named Ashley receives your strain is opposite to an Alia, your attribute to your assembly has changed?

(thinking) I consider a proceed we proceed my strain is many more…I go to a many some-more specific place than a extended one. I’m entirely wakeful I’m operative in electro-tarab. I’m operative on creation it some-more accepted, maybe? Like on how to rise it, work maqam in there, some-more Eastern influences. But it’s still EDM, it’s Electronic Dance Music. So to unequivocally find a right formula, a right change of elements in a music, it’s unequivocally challenging.

So…I put a red line here. The people listening can make their possess judgments, we don’t unequivocally care. we only have to make certain a strain isn’t too hybrid.

It’s like we go to an Arab place here to eat shawerma and instead we get something else. Because there’s a compromise. We’re in America, therefore…

But my strength is in not being like that. Because there are so many people here operative in electronic music, and there are new genres each day. So no: this is what we do, this is how we work. How things develops afterwards, well: this is my red line [that] we can’t unequivocally cross. Once we cranky it, I’ll turn like everybody else.

Yazeed: In regards to we [talking about judgment], your strain doesn’t have a lot of lyrics…but do we feel like by your orchestration there’s a specific summary we wish to broach to your audience?

I would contend a use of a samples or given we use aged Arabic samples is archiving…I consider I’ve used one lane that’s known, “Touba,” by Abdel Halim. But generally we select songs that are different or unknown, we know, not unequivocally used or listened. Old adequate that they’re heritage.

I consider we come from a segment in a universe that’s theme to consistent attack: culturally, on a ground, whatever. We’re not as orderly as Europe and a States in archiving. If we wish to use this sample, there’s no association to go to so we could speak or a proceed to use anything during any time within some arrange of orderly system.

Above: It’s true: a Hello Psychaleppo Facebook page is full of images of aged Arabic art and music.

Because of this, in some places, we’re losing a birthright slowly, yet realizing.

So [to a degree], it serves a purpose. I’m regulating aged Arabic songs so [people] connect. Well, initial we bond with a song.

Youth…there’re a lot of kids currently who don’t know anything [about their heritage]. Kids innate in Syria who were innate during a commencement of everything, they’ve incited 7 given all started and they’re in Europe or. We have a era [that doesn’t know about a heritage], and even I’m influenced as well…

We’re not on a land, yet we lift a culture. So we consider it serves a purpose to use these aged samples. There’s a indicate in doing that. At this point, we can simply get in hold with artists. we can get pleasing voices to work with me, tarabiyyeh. But we don’t unequivocally feel like we wanna do that. Because sampling serves a purpose. It’s an art form, and I’m only requesting them to complicated tools. That’s what we do.

Next: We plead a arriving album—and get a preview.

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